«Luxemburg Lecture» with Ellen Meiksins Wood, 8. maj 2012, Berlin. Thema Theoretische Hintergründe der neuen Kämpfe. Photo: Rosa Luxemburg-Stiftung. (CC BY 2.0).
«Luxemburg Lecture» with Ellen Meiksins Wood, 8. maj 2012, Berlin. Thema Theoretische Hintergründe der neuen Kämpfe. Photo: Rosa Luxemburg-Stiftung. (CC BY 2.0). Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Linkbox om den marxistiske historiker og politiske økonom Ellen Meiksins Wood (12. april 1942 – 14. januar 2016). / Link collection about the Marxist historian and political economist.


Afdøde Ellen Meiksins Wood (12. april 1942 – 14. januar 2016) var med i redaktionskomiteen på det amerikanske tidsskrift Against the Current, britiske New Left Review (1984-1993), britiske Socialist Register (1996-2009) og redaktør på det amerikanske Monthly Review (1997-2000). Hun tilhørte (sammen med bla. Robert Brenner) “Political Marxism”-skolen.

Late Ellen Meiksins Wood  (April 12, 1942 – January 14, 2016) was on the editorial commitee of the American magazine Against the Current, the British New Left Review (1984-1993), the British Socialist Register (1996-2009), and as editor on the American Monthly Review (1997-2000). She belonged (together with among others Robert Brenner) to the school of “Political Marxism”.

Bjarne A. Frandsen
Januar 2016. Revideret januar 2021


Indhold / Contents


 

Biografier / Biographies

Ellen Meiksins Wood (1942-2016) (Wikipedia.org).


 

Bibliografier og tekster / Bibliographies

Ellen Meiksins Wood (Marxistarkiv.se). Texter av och om den amerikansk/kanadensiska marxistiska historikern.

Ellen Meiksins Wood (Political Marxism and Social Sciences). Bibliography with links.

A selection of the works of Ellen Meiksins Wood (Verso Blog). With 42 articles online (1978-2016) + Ellen Meiksins Wood.

Ellen Meiksins Wood (Monthly Review). With 9 articles online (1997-1999).

Against the Current authors. With 9 articles online (1996-2013). Scroll down.

The Ellen Meiksins Wood Reader (pdf). Edited by Larry Patriquin (Haymarket, 2013, 335 p.; online at Digamo.free.fr). With Bibliography of Works by Ellen Meiksins Wood, 1970-2012 (p.311-315).


 

Nekrologer / Obituaries etc.

Demokrati eller kapitalism? (pdf) (Röda rummet, nr.3-4, 2019; online på Marxistarkiv.se, 5. februar 2020, 10 s.). “Carl Wilén introducerar Woods författarskap, med ett särskilt fokus på frågan om skillnaden mellan den antika och den moderna demokratin.”

Kapitalismen er en anomali. Af Esben Bøgh Sørensen og Nicklas Weis Damkjær (Baggrund.com, 17. april 2016). “Ellen Meiksins Wood (1942-2016) var en af vores tid vigtigste og mest innovative tænkere.”

Ellen Meiksins Wood (1942–2016). Av Vivek Chibber (Rødt!: Marxistisk tidsskrift, nr.1, 2016, s.72-73). “Wood var en tenker av ekstraordinært format, som skrev med autoritet om oldtidens Hellas, moderne politisk tenkning fra den tidlige perioden, politisk teori i samtiden, marxisme og den moderne kapitalismens struktur og utvikling. Men enda viktigere var det at hun var en av disse strålende få fra New Left som aldri sviktet sitt engasjement for sosialistisk politikk.”

Ellen Meiksins Wood showed us the irrationality of the capitalist market. By Xavier Lafrance (Jacobin, August 7, 2023). “Ellen Meiksins Wood was one of the great Marxist thinkers of her age. One of Wood’s most important contributions was to show how the coercive pressure of markets is specific to capitalism and point us toward the necessary socialist alternative.”

Ellen Meiksins Wood (1942-2016). By Robert Brenner (Against the Current, Issue 181, March-April 2016). “It is critical not to leave the impression that Ellen was just a Marxist intellectual, however brilliant, concerned only with theory and ideas. What is in the end perhaps most striking is that, while realizing a truly formidable series of important intellectual projects, she was putting political functioning at the center of her life.”

Notes from the Editors (Monthly Review, Vol.67, No.10, March 2016). “Ellen Meiksins Wood was coeditor of Monthly Review with Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy from 1997 to 2000, and a major contributor to historical materialist thought in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century … During her years at the magazine she entered into two crucial debates, one on postmodernism, the other on globalization.”

Marxism loses a passionate champion (Socialist Review, Issue 410, February 2016). “Alex Callinicos looks back with warm memories, not only at the life of Ellen Meiksins Wood, but on her early identification of, and critique of, ‘Post Marxism’ and her critical contribution to the development of the controversial analysis of ‘Political Marxism’.” Se svensk oversættelse: Marxismen förlorar en passionerad för kämpe (pdf) (Marxistsarkiv.se, 3. marts 2016, 4 sider).

Ellen Meiksins Wood: some personal recollections. By John Bellamy Foster (MR Online, 18 January 2016). “Her work … is one of the most important legacies of historical materialism in our time, and a lasting resource of hope in the struggle for humanity’s future.”

Ellen Meiksins Wood: A Marxist who put class at the center of her analysis. By Andrew Coates (Shiraz Socialist, January 15, 2016). “She was a noted intellectual figure on the international Left, whose studies of class, politics and political ideas influenced several generations of thinkers and activists … In academic as well as left-wing activist circles Wood became known for her “political Marxist” approach to history.”

Remembering Ellen Meiksins Wood. By Vivek Chibber (Jacobin: Reason in Revolt, 15 January 2016). “Ellen Meiksins Wood showed so many of us what it means to be a committed intellectual.” På norsk (Rødt! nr.1, 2016).

Ellen Meiksins Wood – her importance to me. By Ursula Huws (Ursulahuws.wordpress.com, January 15, 2016). “First, and most obviously she was a shining, original political economist, combining an over-arching grasp of the theoretical landscape with the intellectual confidence to address the big questions directly …”


 

Anmeldelser og debat / Reviews and debate

Symposium on Ellen Meiksins Wood’s Empire of Capital (Historical Materialism, Vol.15, No.3, 2007, p.45-170; online at Internet Archive). With articles by Paul Blackledge (p.45-55), David Harvey (p.57-70), William I. Robinson (p.71-93), Prasenjit Bose (p.95-120), Francois Chesnais (p.121-142) and Ellen Meiksins Wood (p.143-170).

Understanding Imperialism: old and new dominion. By David McNally (Against the Current, Issue 117, July-August 2005). Review of Ellen Meiksins Wood, Empire of Capital (Verso, 2003, 182 p.). “In a rich historical analysis, Wood argues that the non-territorial form of imperialism we see today is probably the most quintessentially capitalist one.”

Empire of Capital. By Paul Hampton (Workers’ Liberty, 4 September 2003). Review of Ellen Meiksins Wood’s book (Verso, 2003, 182 p.). “… ‘imperialism’ is an essentially contested concept … That’s why this new book by Ellen Meiksins Wood is so valuable. It provides a coherent account of capitalist imperialism to explain the period we are living in.”

Notes on Ellen Meiksins Wood. By Clive Bradley (Workers’ Liberty, 30 November 2002). Review of Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy Against Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 1995, 300 p.). “As one of the most trenchant Marxist critics of ‘post-modernism’ and all its associated nonsense, she is an important thinker, and all her work I’ve read is readable and stimulating.”

Critical insights. By Ian Donovan (Weekly Worker, Issue 320, January 27, 2000). Review of Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism (Monthly Review Press, 1999, 138 p.). “The core of comrade Wood’s thesis is that the origin of capitalism as a world system was in England. Her analysis is derived from the views of the historian Robert Brenner …”

The goldilocks state. By John Rees (Socialist Review, Issue 237, January 2000; online at Internet Archive). Review Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism (Monthly Review, 1999). “Certainly a short summary of the arguments should be welcome. There is no obvious rival to Ellen Wood’s book. Yet The Origin of Capitalism remains unsatisfactory because it fails to do justice to these debates.” Scroll down.

The critique of capitalism: the writings of Ellen Meiksins Wood in review. By Tony Brown and Janet Burstall (Workers’ Liberty, Issue 45, March 1998). “Wood lays the groundwork for a discussion of the history of democracy, and her case for applying the political concepts of democracy to the economic sphere of production. She is also placing capitalism in a historical context, which helps the reader to conceive that capitalism is not a permanent state of affairs.”

Renewing historical materialism. By Nancy Holmstrom (Against the Current, Issue 68, May-June 1997). Review of Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy Against Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 1995, 300 p.). “Wood provides a brilliant explication and defense of the key theoretical concepts relevant to socialism, understood to be the most radical social and economic democracy.”

A muted blast. By Brian Manning (Socialist Review, Issue 208, May 1997). Review of Ellen Meiksins Wood, A Trumpet of Sedition (Pluto Press, 1997, 150 p.). “The Woods provide lucid and enlightening analyses of some political theories, and also striking accounts of aspects of the rising of capitalism, but the two do not fit well together.”

Democracy & Capitalism: friends or foes? (New Socialist Magazine, January 1996; online at Internet Archive WayBackMachine). “Interview with Ellen Meiksins Wood: Below she speaks about some of the political implications of her most recent book, Democracy Against Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Going out of fashion? (pdf). By Martin Thomas (Workers’ Liberty, Issue 6, April-May 1987). Review of Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Retreat From Class: A New ‘True Socialism’ (Verso, 1986, 202 p. ). “Ellen Meiksins Wood deals with those of the leftists ‘retreating from class’ who go in for ‘theoretical elaboration and complexity, not to mention pretension and obscurity’.”

Looking for alternatives to reformism. By Alex Callinicos (International Socialism, Issue 34, Winter 1987, p.106–117). Review of Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Retreat from Class: A New ‘True’ Socialism (Verso, 1986). See debate: A reply to Looking for alternatives to reformism, by Ellen Meiksins Wood (Issue 35, Summer 1987, p.129–138 + A rejoinder to Wood, by Alex Callinicos (ibid., p.139-147).


 

På dansk, norsk og svensk af E.M.W.

Kapitalismens ursprung – Ett längre perspektiv (pdf) (Marxistarkiv.se, 5. februar 2020, 9. s.). “Utdrag ur bok där Meiksins Wood analyserar övergången från feodalism till kapitalism och kommer fram till att man delvis måste revidera gamla uppfattningar om hur detta skedde.”

Övergivandet av klassbegreppet. En ny “sann” marxism (pdf) (Marxistarkiv.se, 30. oktober 2019, 90 s.). “En uppgörelse med ‘postmarxism’ och vänsterpopulism (särskilt i Ernesto Laclaus tappning).” Engelskt original: The Retreat from Class: A New ”True” Socialism (1986/1998). Det engelska originalet omfattar 12 kapitel. I denna svenska utgåva ingår förord, kapitlen 1-4 + 9-12).

Kapitalisme (Baggrund.com, 15. april 2016). Oversættelse af kapitel fra værket The Elgar Companion to Marxist Economics (2012).

Modernitet, postmodernitet eller kapitalisme? (Rødt!: Marxistisk tidsskrift, nr.1, 2016, s.74-87). “… teorien om postmoderniteten er basert på en historieteori som nedtoner forskjellen mellom kapitalistiske og ikke-kapitalistiske samfunn. Det er en teori for at kapitalismen er uunngåelig og umulig å erstatte.”

Autonomiseringen av ideologi och politik (pdf) (Marxistarkiv.se, 2. marts 2016, 18 sider). Kapitel 4 ur Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Retreat from Class (1986): “Kritik av teoretikern Ernesto Laclaus s k ‘postmarxism’, som fungerat som viktig inspirationskälla främst för spanska Podemos, men även andra moderna vänsterrörelser, såsom grekiska Syriza.”

Tilbage til Marx (Solidaritet, nr.3, november 1997, s.18-23; online på Internet Archive). “Så nu er det måske på høje tid for venstrefløjen, at se at kapitalismen universalisering ikke kun er et nederlag for os, men også en åbning – og det vil, selvfølgelig, frem for alt betyde en åbning for den ikke-moderigtige ting, som hedder klassekamp.”

Imperium i kapitalens tidsalder (Rødt!: Marxistisk tidsskrift, nr.1, 2012). “Mens imperier finnes lenge før kapitalismen, kan vår tids imperialisme ikke skilles fra kapitalismen. Hva er det som særpreger kapitalismen som økonomisk system, slik du ser det? spør Sasha Liley i dette intervjuet.”

Det kommunistiske manifest etter 150 år (Røde Fane, nr.4, 1998). “Det er ikke en lang og detaljert lærd studie, men en offentlig erklæring av et politisk program, en kort og dramatisk proklamasjon om mål og et kamprop, skrevet i ei tid av politisk gjæring, ved innledninga til det som viste seg å bli det nærmeste verden noensinne er kommet til en internasjonal revolusjon.”

Arbeid, klasse og stat i verdenskapitalismen (pdf) (Røde Fane, nr.4, 1997, s.26-30; online på Manifest/Internet Archive). “Vi bør være omhyggelige med hvordan vi anvender begrepet «globalisering». Vi må passe på å ikke behandle de tendensene som går under dette navnet som om de var naturlige, uunngåelige prosesser i stedet for historisk spesifikke kapitalistiske prosesser: Utbyttinga av mennesker og naturressurser.”


 

Political Marxism debate

Political Marxism (Wikipedia.org).

Political Marxism and the Social Sciences (site).

Capitalism’s Gravediggers. By Ellen Meiksins Wood (Jacobin: Reason in Revolt, 5 December 2014). “How we define capitalism and think about its development shapes how we struggle to transcend it.”

The poverty of Political Marxism. By Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu (International Socialist Review, Issue 94, Fall 2014, p.114-133). “For the Political Marxists, capitalism can be said to have emerged only when the direct producers have lost their means of subsistence and production and have become entirely dependent on the market.”

The debate on Marxism and history: What is at stake? By Charles Post (International Socialist Review, Issue 92, Spring 2014, p.91-104). “Davidson makes a number of substantial criticisms … Unfortunately, he also engages in some, all too typical, caricatures of our argument.”

Is there anything to defend in Political Marxism? By Neil Davidson (International Socialist Review, Issue 91, Winter 2013-14, p.48-67). “Political Marxism involves much more than this. In general, it rejects several fundamental aspects of historical materialism; more specifically, it misunderstands Marx’s method in Capital.”

In defense of Political Marxism. By Paul Heideman and Jonah Birch (International Socialist Review, Issue 90, Summer 2013). “The case for Political Marxism isn’t limited to its better conceptualization of the origins of capitalism. It also has important political consequences.”

The origins of capitalism (International Socialism, Issue 111, Summer 2006, p.127-162). “This is the transcript of the discussion which took place between Chris Harman and Robert Brenner at a school in London in November 2004 organised jointly by the journals International Socialism and Historical Materialism.”


 

Se også på Socialistisk Bibliotek / See also:

  • Tidslinjen/Timeline: januar 1986, links om Against The Current
  • Tidslinjen/Timeline: maj 1949, links om Monthly Review
  • Tidslinjen/Timeline: januar 1960, links om New Left Review